The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1887-04-20
wANAMAKER's EXPERIMENT.
a Philadelphia Employer Who Shares His
Profits With His Employees.
lPhilsdelphis Press. I

save as the co operative banking system of
Germany and our own mutual insurance
systems and building associations show
the application of the cooperative princi-
pie to the accumulation of capital. But
while the past offers no guide save by in
ference for Mr.. Wanamaker's experiment,
all that has been done points to its sue
cess. Other things being equal, the man
who adds the personal devotion of en-
ployes to all other odds in his favor has
better chance of success than the man who
does not do this. By high wages and spe-
plOyers strive to do this, but Mr.. John
Wsnamaker, with his usual skill at organ
izing in working shape what others feel
and see mistily, has put this consideration
into definite, tangible form which must
appeal most powerfully to every man who
works for him.
Such step is great advance along the
path John Stuart Mill marked out in say
ing of our present system: "The industrial
economy which divides society absolutely
into two portions the payers of wages and
the receivers of them, the first counted by
thousands aud the last by millions, IS
neither fit nor capable of indefinite dur.
alton, and the possibility of changing this
system for one of combination without de-
pendence and unity of interest instead Of
organized hostility depends altogether
nership principle"
Hitherto in applying cooperation to the
work OF distribution only two factors, the
capital embarked and the customer, have
been considered. The third, the salesman,
has been overlooked. A bushes of $780,
000 600, all of whose profits are divided be-
tween customers and those who provide
the original capital, is done by En-
glish cooperative stores, but their
Il LII Al
establishment. The five largest of these
London companies, all joint companies,
in 1882 sold S23 S92, $50 of merchandise, on
which they reaped gross profits Of 81 250, 900,
in which employee did not share as such
The principle of co-opera ton has given all
these organizations an advantage which, in
1882, had raised their total number in E1g-
land to 7S2 retail societies with trade Of
S64, SOC, 900, while wholesale societies had a
trade of ST. 500 600, and the membership
of these organizations is one in nine o.
population IN England and one in eight in
Scotland. Cooperative organIz atoms for
the same pdrpose-distributio on cheap
basis by saving the retail prof do trade
in this country of about $50, 000,0 600 One
of these, the Philadelphia Industrial
Cooperative Society, conducted by Knights
OF Labor, is pronounce by Professor r I.
Ely, zone of the most brilliant ex 3m pies Of
success achieved by co operation. The
Changers, with their great store in Balti-
more, doing trade of 3, 900, 600 in two
years after it had been started on capital of
S12, and their Granger Bank in California,
with capital of So, 600 goo, paid up. fur
nish another cooperative success. But in
all these, and in lesser enterprises like
them, the employe has only his salary,
and the apt complaint is made by man
in Massachusetts managing a cooperative
labor store that he did not dare to Look
well-fed for fear he would hear complaint
that he was over paid. A complaint with
some of whose phases Mr. Pnwderly is ia
miliar.
Not less successful have ~ ne expert
ments in proft.sharing wier5 production
is concerned. M. Godin's community at
Guise, in which over 400 persons are in
terested in an iron foundry, all of whose
profits above per cent. on capital are di-
vided among employees, with q system of
retiring pensions, is the largest and most
conspicuous instance of coo peration in
production, but it is only one of fifty or
sixty like enterprises IN France. 1t is now
fOrty-fye years since NJ. Leclaire founded
the great house-palnting firm OF Paris, whose
employees. originally eighty, have averaged
over ZOO in number for years past, and
who received, 1912. 50, 1866, 22j in cash and
1927, 800 paid to the fund which provides
with retiring fund every man over sixty
five, or who has labored twenty-five years
or has met with an injury. In this period
the addition of these payments to wages
has amounted 10 % per cent. A great
printing firm. Maison Chalk, with 354 en-
ployes in 1888, had distributed on SINH
lar basis S3l, 30 in cash and $l29. 40 in ben
efits from 1872 to 1881, with piano works
and music-box makers telling like story.
The imitation of these esta blishments in
England has, up to a recent time, met with
i'll success. Messrs. Briggs, English col
liery owner, beginning in 1868 with profit
sharing on rising market, were forced TO
abandon it in 1874, when their workmen
refused to accept lower wages on a falling
market. Fox, Head IL Co., an English
iron working firm. had precisely similar
experience, and this, we regret 10
say, was the result of profit sharing
attempted in well-known machine
shop in this city. But, in spite OF failure,
the principle has made its way. William
Thompson " Sons, great wool manufact-
urers OF Huddersheld, have turned their
works into a cooperative enterprise, and
Messrs. Hoyle, of Manchester, attribute
their success in running at profit in dull
times to profit-sharirg with their hands.
Spinning mills have yet to be managed on
this basis in this country. There are few
co operative fOundries scattered over toe
country: but none successful on a large
scale. G. A. Pillsbury & Co., however, the
great milling firm of Minneapolis, have for
some years divided 500, 900 year of their
profits among their men, and the cooper
alive cooper shops in the same city do halt
the trade in barrels in that great milling
center. The Century shares profits with
employees, and so do the New York Stats
Zeitung and Boston Herald.
A mercantile business, however, rests
upon different basis from all these CO.
opeI alive enterprises in distribution and
production, and in his appeal to the CO.
operative principle Mr.. Wanamaker has no
recorded predecessor in traffic The Or
leans railroad system, one of the largest in
France, has shared profits with its en-
ployes SINCE 1912 and, 1922, has distrib-
uted S12 916, $50 upon this principle, but
as the payments were continued at the rate
of 10 per cent On salaries and treated as a
working charge the system. has practically
become a bonus for good service. More
akin TO the step just taken here is the
experience of the Compagnie des AS
surances Generates, of Paris, whose
go clerks have received since 1850 5
per cent. on all profits; the company
paying ont, 1850 81, $632, 1S5 in cash and
81, OIL, $50 in pension benefi s. This expert
ment run upon lines not unlike those pro-
posed by Mr.. Wanamaker suggests that
mercantile enterprise is at least as open to
the cooperative principle in furnishing
employees who do better work than those
who do not share the profits of their indus